


Not Anymore

by ArsonEmbre



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Communication, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27928039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsonEmbre/pseuds/ArsonEmbre
Summary: All he'd needed was an explanation. But he never got that. So who can blame him for trying to shut him out?
Relationships: Hayner/Seifer (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Not Anymore

**Author's Note:**

> Commission for the wonderful Martaeus Martimus Lloydtino Ninjago Seiner Tuesday Christmas. Love you so very much 🤍

Nights like these are the worst. The ones where you can’t sleep because you can’t get your brain to quiet down no matter what you do or how hard you try. I think it would be easier to accept the fact that I can’t sleep and I could get up and do something if there was something wrong. I mean, if I was sad then I could get up and turn on a video that would make me laugh until I couldn’t hold my eyes open anymore, or if I was mad then I could play a video game where I can punch whoever is in my way. If there was something  _ wrong _ , then I’d have a way to handle it. But there’s nothing wrong. Nothing happened. I don’t feel angry and I don’t feel sad. My body feels tired, but my head is so busy and that makes me even more tired. I don’t know how to fix what isn’t wrong.

Maybe a good start would be not staring at the ceiling like I’m the star of a twenty-something year old man’s depressing music video about his crush in high school.

I roll over on my side and try to get a little more comfortable, since I’ve been on my back for a little more than an hour. I reach back to pull the hood of my jacket over my head and yank the covers up to my chin. It’s not really cold, but I’ve gotten used to a way warmer sleeping situation and it’s...readjusting is still kind of hard for me.

I sigh without meaning to. Nothing is wrong, so I have nothing to sigh for. Yeah, I’d like to sleep, but it’s not the end of the world if I can’t do it right this second, you know? No,  _ I  _ don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. God, it’s too quiet in here and I’m starting to annoy myself.

I close my eyes again, but relaxing isn’t any easier. This position isn’t that much more comfortable than the last one. My legs feel restless and my pillow is too flat. I lift my head just enough to fold the pillow in half and try it that way. This isn’t enough either. 

It isn’t until I hear grass crunching outside of my window that my heart catches up with my brain, and I sit up to make sure that what I’m hearing is real. The sound stops for a minute, long enough for me to convince myself that it’s just the wind, then picks back up again. I know that sound, and I don’t really want to deal with it right now. That doesn’t stop me from throwing the covers back and making my way over to the window. As soon as I pull the curtains back, I see it: pale blond fur trotting in an impatient circle a foot or so below me. He doesn’t notice me at all, and I have half a mind to close the curtains and tuck myself back into bed. I can only stare at him for a few seconds longer before I eventually cave and open the window. It makes a loud squeak when I try to lift it, and I cringe and pray to a god that my parents didn’t hear that.

The squeak is enough to get his attention. He stops pacing and comes right up to the window, pulling himself up so that his paws can rest on the window sill right between my own hands. We’re eye to eye now, and I feel like I could reach out and touch the tension between us if I really wanted to. So much has happened since the last time we saw each other. There’s so much that I didn’t get to say to him. Time heals all wounds, right? Well, it didn’t. I healed my own goddamn wounds. I have nothing to say to him anymore. He glares at me in the only way that he can--maybe it’s not a glare, or never has been--but it doesn’t intimidate me anymore.

Things aren’t the same anymore. I’m not the same guy you ditched all those months ago.

“So now you finally remember how to contact me,” I say. It’s not meant to be a question, but it winds up coming out that way. He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t blame him for it because he can’t. Even if he could talk...I don’t think that an explanation is what I would want from him. I spent these last few months moving on. It was his idea to leave,  _ his  _ choice. He was the one who taught me how to live without him. You don’t get to just...come back without warning or reason and make me care again. I’m not going to do it. I wouldn’t care what he had to say. “Too late, Go home, Seifer.”

His eyes dart to the floor before moving back to mine. He wants to be let inside. The answer is no. It’s only going to make me more tired.

“What do you want?” I finally ask. “If it’s closure or one last talk or...whatever, then I don’t want it. I--”

He ducks under my arm and slips in through the window. The way he just bulldozes in causes me to stumble back. Yeah, it’s been less than sixty seconds since he’s been here and I’m definitely feeling more tired. “Still not respecting boundaries I see...”

He doesn’t look back at me, doesn’t acknowledge me or what I’ve said at all. I watch him as he hops on my bed and wriggles his way beneath my sheets, curling up into a semi-circle the way he always used to and staring at me from beneath the little tent over his head. I don’t have the energy to make a big deal out of it, but I know that I don’t want to do this again.

I rub at my eyes. They’re starting to sting and I can’t tell if that’s from not sleeping or me trying not to cry and  _ god  _ I do not want to cry in front of him. “Look, whatever it is, whatever you want from me or want me to do, it’s not gonna happen. Okay? Please just leave me alone and go back to wherever it is that you came from,” I tell him, making the laziest gesture that I can toward the window. He can show himself out and I can lock the window and never think about this or him again. Except he doesn’t move. He crosses his paws and rests his head on top of them, ignoring what I said completely.

“You fucking heard me.  _ Go _ .” I don’t want him to stay and I don’t want him to come back, but if it’s going to get him out of there, then… “If you wanna bullshit me in the morning, fine, come back then. But not now. Just let me sleep.”

This time, he pops his head up. I don’t expect him to start talking, but I don’t exactly expect him to leave either. He stands up in my bed, shakes the covers off, and hops on the floor. His eyes stay locked on mine as he walks up to me and bites the sleeve of my jacket, furiously tugging backwards on it. He wants me to walk, and for some reason, I start to. When his back hits my bed, he lets go and jumps back on it.

“...What? You want me to lay down?”

He looks at me for five hard seconds before walking in a circle and settling down on his side of the...on the  _ other  _ side of the bed. I shouldn’t be entertaining this. I know I shouldn’t do this and I know I shouldn’t want to.

But I find myself climbing into bed with him anyway.

My arm makes the usual movements: grab the sheets and fix them over the two of us. Seifer wiggles closer, and I end up doing the same. His breaths, which have always been a few puffs faster than mine, feel so warm as they blow against my arm. It’s the warmth I’ve missed so much, but I can’t get used to this. He can’t stay here.

“What do you want?” I end up asking again, knowing that the answer won’t come.

...

I don’t remember falling asleep at all.

When I open my eyes, the sun is shining through the window. The curtain is pulled back and the window is still wide open. I would have been more alarmed about that if it wasn’t for the arm wrapped tightly around me.  _ That’s _ where my focus is right now. I know who it belongs to and I know what this is. My feelings are the same as last night: I don’t want it.

Seifer shifts behind me, pulling me closer to him. Even through the thick material of the jacket, I can feel his body heat like crazy. Or maybe it’s because of the jacket that it feels like I’m burning up against him. But I’ve always wanted to burn and he knows that. He knew that before he left me to freeze  _ alone _ .

I huff, hoping that the noise or the movement of my body is enough to wake him up out of his sleep. The faster that he wakes up, the faster he can get out. Aaaand I’d be lying if I said that I wouldn’t get some kind of spiteful pleasure out of waking him up before he was ready. It was something that he’d always hated, and something that--up until now--I’d avoided doing whenever we’d spend nights together. A few moments pass, but he doesn't move. I try again to sigh as loud as I can. I won’t be able to move out of his grip, but I can wiggle enough to disturb him, hopefully.

“I’m not asleep.”

Goddamn it.

It takes me a minute to find the words I want to stay. There’s still a part of me that doesn’t want to be too harsh with him, but that part can fuck right off. I don’t need to care about his feelings. I don’t need this. I didn’t ask for him to come back and make it easier to sleep or to make my heart beat faster or  _ whatever. _ Fuck, fuck, fuck, it’s beating too fast now. 

“Then why are you still here?”

“Do you actually wanna know? Can I explain without you getting pissed at me--”

“No.”

“No to which?”

I don’t want to hear it. I  _ don’t  _ want to hear it because I don’t want to forgive him. So what if I’m bitter? So what if I wanna stay that way? I have every right to. He’s the one who has no right to be here.

I shut my eyes again. “If you can explain in five words or less, then sure. Go for it,” I tell him. It’s sarcasm and I know that he’s going to pick up on it, but I also know that he’s going to try to do it anyway. Knowing him too well comes with the knowledge that he loves a challenge, no matter how small.

“I’m safe now. No hunters.”

My eyes pop open the second that it feels like my heart isn’t beating anymore. I swear the entire world goes silent as I try to process what he just said to me. He sure as hell didn’t try to explain shit before he fucked off to who knows where, and now that he’s back he isn’t making sense. I knew I shouldn’t have given him any sort of inch because now he’s taken a mile and I feel like I can’t breathe. What the fuck does he mean ‘no hunters’? Who the fuck was hunting him? Why the fuck didn’t he  _ tell me? _

I try to sit up, pushing against his arm as I do. Seifer doesn’t try to keep me there. He not only lets me sit up, but sits up with me. It isn’t until I turn to look at him that everything hits me all at once. He’s been gone such a long time and I missed him. I missed being able to look him in his eye and  _ touch  _ him. Yeah, I’m still mad at him, and I think I will be for a long time...but I missed him. So much. This doesn’t feel fair.

“Hey,” he tries to smile, voice just soft enough to match the early morning quiet. One thing that I can see is that there's still love in his eyes. I can feel it in the way that he’s looking at me. That hasn't changed. But his attempt at trying to be casual with me falls flat. I don’t want casual. I don’t wanna pretend that nothing was ever wrong and that this idiot didn’t make me feel like I was dying every single night for...for  _ months _ . I won’t let him sit here and get away with nearly killing me. I won't let him kill me again.

“Stop it,” I frown. “Tell me what that’s supposed to mean. What hunters?”

“You’ll listen to me if I do?”

If I want answers, then I guess I have to. Even if he leaves after this and we never see each other again, I wouldn’t be happy if something happened to him. The worst part of these last few months has been sitting here wondering if he was fucking alive or not. He could probably handle himself just fine; that’s what I had to tell myself so that I could at least begin the process of being okay again. Now he’s sitting here telling me that I probably had a reason to worry all along?

I nod. It’s the only thing that I can do.

“Alright, so...” he moves to cross his legs in front of him, but I’m only noticing the fact that he has on a shirt right now. It’s a thin white tee that I was sure I’d moved to the back of my closet a week ago. The shirt belonged to him, but I could never gather the strength to take it out and throw it or the rest of his stuff away. “You have every right to be pissed at me. Every single right. But I didn’t leave for no reason. The day before I left, I get this envelope in the mail. It isn’t addressed to anyone and it doesn’t have any writing on it at all. My mom was actually the one who got it. She opens it, and finds these polaroid pictures in it. One of the lake where my dad usually goes when he wants to be alone, one of my little sister walking home from school, and one of us at the field.”

The anger and exhaustion that I felt before just...vanishes. It’s like someone had snapped their fingers and  _ boom _ , it gets replaced with anxiety. He doesn’t say anything else after that and I’m kind of glad for it. My face feels like it’s going numb and my heart is picking up speed and feels like it’s never gonna calm down. I look down at my hands. Ever since we sat up, I’ve only been able to look at his eyes. And for a second, I really thought I was going to fall into them. But now it feels like I’m slipping and I need that anchor. But I can’t look at him.

The day that Seifer took me to that field felt like the happiest day of my life. That was the day he told me--he _showed_ me who he was and he gave me a choice. He was the first person in my life that made me feel like I had a choice, and that that choice actually fucking mattered. I was so bitter and mad because I felt like he had taken that choice with him when he disappeared. That was the day that I took a chance on him; I planted my feet and decided that _I_ wouldn’t run away again. _Never_ again. And someone was fucking watching? Using that as some kind of threat?

I felt disgusting. The words we said to one another and the moment of painful honesty that we shared was supposed to be a private moment. It was my one moment of privacy, our moment away from the rest of the world. I...genuinely feel sick.

“S-So someone was...” I try to start, but it’s so hard for me to catch my breath right now.

“Hey, it’s all right.” I see his hand come toward me, and instinct makes me push it away. I’m not sure if being touched right now will calm me down or freak me out even more, so I just...I need him to not do that. Because it’s not all right. We had been so careful. We went out of our way to not be seen, and someone still found a way to be exactly where they needed to be in order to hurt him. Seifer had mentioned the word  _ hunters _ just a few minutes ago too. I might actually throw up.

My head starts to shake. “You’re telling me that someone was watching us that day? Or watching you?”

“Watching me,” he confirms with a frown. “But definitely threatening you. My dad was the one who made the plan to up and leave, and you’ve seen how he can get when his mind is made up.”

Seifer absolutely gets his impulsive nature from his dad. If that man wants to do something, he will do it  _ right now _ and you can’t really get a word in edgewise. I should have...thought about that when Seifer didn’t show up again. I got so used to all the nice words and the promises he made to stay that felt so good and so real. All of them probably were real. But it’s so hard to think when your heart feels like it’s been wrung dry. I feel like an idiot.

“I need you to know that I didn’t want to leave, but my dad had a point. If we took off and made it look like we were running out of fear, then they would follow us. With us on the move, it would be easier to lure them to a time and place where we could take care of the problem.” He paused for a second. “And if they were following us, then they wouldn’t be bothered with you. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want them to track me to your house. I didn’t know if they already knew where you live but I assumed they didn’t because it wasn’t in the polaroids. But we did take care of it, and everything’s fine for now. I just...”

My eyes return to his face. Now that I’m looking at him,  _ really  _ looking at him, he looks a little pale. Tired, actually. There are bags under his eyes and his eyes don’t really shine the way that they did the last time we spoke. His eyes are somewhere else, and I get the feeling that even though we’re sitting face to face, we’re still miles apart. He’s not here with me right now, and I can’t say that I’m fully present either. 

“I didn’t come to ask for your forgiveness or to try to worm my way back in, I swear. I wanted to explain and just...have one more night with you. I missed you like hell and I didn’t want the last time to be the last time.”

The silence between us doesn’t feel good at all. Just last night, I was adamant that I didn’t want to talk and I didn’t want to hear a word he said. Now I want to hear everything, every word, every syllable. I want him to tell me that he and his family are okay now. I want him to tell me that it’s all right and that he’ll be here tomorrow. I want him to tell me that I’m as stupid as I feel right now and lie down with me again. I want him to tell me that the tears in my eyes mean something, and that it’s not weakness.

I want it. All of it. The casual, the conversations, the warmth. I just want it all to be mine again.

“I’m really sorry,” he tells me. His voice is quieter than it’s ever been. I want to tell him that it’s okay, that I understand, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get anything out. My throat feels too tight and I’m still having trouble processing everything. It’s like I’m being broken down all over again when I thought I was okay and over it. It doesn’t feel good being in this empty place again. I don’t know what to do.

He looks like he’s about to say something, but it never comes out. Not that thought anyway. Instead, he unfolds his legs and moves toward the edge of the bed. “All I can say is I’m sorry. I know the way out.”

Before my brain can catch up with my body, I all but dive forward and grab onto his wrist. If he were anyone else I might have felt a little bad about how tightly I was holding it. But even then, I can’t get my hand to stop shaking. The world goes still for a moment. He’s not making any effort to move, which is good...but I don’t know what’s supposed to come next. That’s when I realize that I haven’t said anything in a while and he probably got the wrong idea.

“You don’t...have to...” I say, though it comes out like a whisper. My vision blurs more and more as I stare at him. The burn is eventually too much for me to handle and I end up closing them, sending the tears that had been building since he’d arrived down my cheeks. I didn’t want to cry. “I-It’s okay. It’s okay if you stay.”

Seifer doesn’t say anything in response. But I feel the mattress in front of me start to move. Suddenly, the warmth that I had missed so fucking much is all around me. I’m shaking like a leaf, but it feels so warm in his arms. I don’t know how to handle this either. The tears keep coming, and I can only bury my face into his shoulder as he sits here and holds me as tightly as he can without it hurting. I missed this. I missed him.

I want to believe that everything’s going to be okay. Maybe not in this very moment, or any time tomorrow, but it will be. As long as he keeps coming back, keeps being this honest with me, then I can and will do the same for him. I won’t run away if he doesn’t.

Not anymore.


End file.
